— The story and any possible original characters are mine. NCIS, its own characters and canon aren't. —
Just a reminder: The one shots have nothing to do with one another. Some might be AU, some more with the canon, and some episode tags.
Leo
The hot summer heat hit his face almost as soon as he stepped outside and immediately worry set in. Without a second thought, Gibbs rushed back indoors, grabbed the small hat hanging from the hook by the front door and ran back outside. He let out audible sight of relief when he found his son kneeling next to the fence and relatively alright, albeit there was a slight flush on the little boy's cheeks.
Crouching down next to the child, he carefully put the hat over the soft hair lightened by the sun. "What are you doing, buddy?"
Tony looked forlorn. "I stepped on one of the anties," he whispered and his lower lip started to wobble. "Now it's d-dead." His breath hitched as he pointed at something on the ground only vaguely resembling the ant it used to be. Long trail of other ants kept moving as they always do. While they watched, the ants carried their dead away.
"Anties, huh?" Gibbs had to bite his tongue to not show his amusement. It helped when he saw his child close to start sobbing his little heart out. His big little heart. "I'm sure you didn't mean to. It was an accident and we all have stepped on 'anties'," Gibbs had to swallow down his amusement again, "and that's just the way things are."
"I don't like it..."
Gibbs took the small boy into his arms and started walking away. Ants or 'anties', he didn't want to keep his boy thinking about something that broke his heart. Of course it was going to happen sooner or later anyway, that's just life, but as long as Gibbs could prolong such moments, he would do it. "I'm afraid that's a hard lesson you are going to learn as you grow older. Life is unfair like that and bad things happen and we just need to learn from those things and move on."
"Daddy..."
"Yeah, buddy?" Gibbs felt his heart swell each and every time he was called 'daddy'. He already feared that moment when his little boy would decide that he was 'too old' to call his dad 'daddy'. Well, better enjoy it while he still could. So if he now held his son a little tighter in his arms, he hoped the boy wouldn't mind as he sometimes started squirming to get down so he could walk, or run, on his own two little feet. It was quite impressive just how much energy there was packed in such a small little thing.
"Do anties get to go to heaven?"
"Uh..."
The End